How To Personalize Windows 7 Starter

Do you have Windows 7 Starter on your netbook? Friendly Computers think that this article will be very useful for you!

Microsoft removed many of the personalization options in Windows 7 Starter, the cheap edition for netbooks.  There is still a lot of stuff you can customize, though some of it is hidden, so here we’ll show you how to make your netbook your very own.

In all other editions of Windows 7, you can easily personalize your computer by simply right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Personalize.  This gives you a wide range of options to change, including themes, background, sounds, screensaver, mouse pointers, and desktop icons.This Personalization panel not available Windows 7 Starter, however.  If you right-click on the desktop, all you will see are options to change your resolution and add Desktop Gadgets.With a few quick Start Menu searches, though, you can rediscover many of the personalization settings.  Here’s how to change your window theme, screensaver, sounds, and more in Windows 7 Starter.  All of these options are in the normal Personalization panel in other editions of Windows 7, but here we’ll show you how to find them in Starter.

Sounds

It can be both useful and enjoyable to change your default sounds.  Anyone who’s booted a laptop during a meeting knows how annoying computer sounds can be.  Or, if you just want to make your PC sound different than the default settings, Windows 7 includes several very nice sound schemes.

Simply enter “change sounds” in your start menu search, and then select “Change system sounds”.

Here you can change or remove any of the sounds or even turn on or off the Windows boot sound.You can even choose one of the other sound schemes; 7 Starter still includes all of the new sound schemes!

Screensaver

Most netbooks will have no screensaver enabled by default, and instead will have the screen turn off when idle to conserve power.  If you would like your netbook to have a screensaver, Windows 7 Starter does still include all the default Windows 7 screensavers.  Simply type “screensaver” in your start menu search, and choose “Change screen saver”.

This will open the same screensaver option dialog you’re used to.  Choose the screensaver and settings you want.

Theme

By default, Windows 7 Starter uses the Aero Classic theme.  This is similar to the default Aero Glass theme on other editions of Windows 7, but without the transparency.If you prefer the classic Windows look (from Windows 95/98/2000/ME), or need to use a high contrast theme, you can still revert to this.  Type “theme” in the start menu search, and click the “Change the color scheme” link.

This opens the classic theme selector.  Choose the them you want, and click OK.

Here’s the Windows Classic theme on Windows 7 Starter.You can change your theme options in the Windows Classic theme, including the desktop background color.  Simply click Advanced in the previous dialog, click on the background color in the picture, and then choose the color you want from the box.

Background Picture

Windows 7 Starter does not allow you to directly change the background.  One of the best ways around this is the Slide Show desktop gadget.  To add this, right-click on your desktop, and click Gadgets.

Now, double-click on the Slide Show gadget, or click and drag it to your desktop.By default the gadget is small.  To make it larger, hover your mouse over the right hand side of the gadget, and click on the middle button with the arrow.Now the gadget will show a 320×240 image.

This actually looks fairly nice for a background, especially on the standard 1024×600 resolution screens on netbooks. Desktop Icons

To change the icons for common items such as My Computer and the Recycle Bin, enter “icons” in the start menu search and select the “Show or hide common icons on the desktop” link.

Here you can show or hide icons, or can also change the icons for these items.Select the item you wish to change, and click Change Icon.  You can select from icons included with Windows, or others you may have on your computer.Mouse Pointers

If you’d like to customize your mouse pointers, enter “cursors” in the start menu search, and choose the “Change how the mouse pointer looks” link.

This will open the classic mouse properties dialog, where you can choose mouse pointer schemes and change individual cursors.

Conclusion

Windows 7 Starter still has a lot of customization options, but they’re not as apparent as they are in other editions of Windows 7.  With these tips, you should be able to customize your netbook more than you originally thought possible.  And these all work without installing any 3rd party software!

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11243/how-to-personalize-windows-7-starter/

Five Best Start Pages

What start page do you have for your web-browser? Friendly Computers would like to share with you this article.

Your start page is the first thing you see when you open your browser or load a new tab—your gateway to the rest of the web. Get the most from your start page with one of these five favorites.

Whether the start page you're using is your browser's default or you've carefully selected it, checking out these five contenders for best start page will give you a chance to decide if your current start page serves your needs or if it could use an upgrade.

First, a note on our methodology. Several popular entries in this week's Hive Five are essentially clones of each other (just for different browsers), so we opted to combine the most popular just-like-the-other options into single entries in order to give you a more diverse Hive Five. You'll notice, for example, the entry on Speed Dial-like start pages includes the Chrome start page, Opera Speed Dial, and Speed Dial for Firefox all in one entry instead of spreading them out so we could squeeze more options into the final result.

Photo by Kairos Photo.

about:blank (Free, Browser-Independent)

In modern web browsers, typing about:XXX provides various information depending on what the XXX part is. (For more on the various about: variables, gloss over this Wikipedia article.) about:blank is the universal code for "display a blank HTML document", and many Lifehacker readers prefer this as their start page—or anti-start page in a way!—because it fires up each session and new tab with a clean slate that doesn't use any unnecessary resources or bandwidth. It's fast and distraction-free.

Fav4.org (Free, Web-Based)

Fav4 is probably the most elegant of the start pages featured here—not counting the extreme-minimalist approach of about:blank. The arrangement is simple: You visit Fav4 and click on the customize gear in the lower right hand corner. From the customization menu, you can select your four favorite sites from the roster of provided sites or suggest a new site if they don't have one of your favorites. Drag and drop the four sites of your choice onto the customization side bar, and the sites will be displayed—as seen in the screenshot above—as four large icons in your browser window. You don't need to sign up to use the service—it saves your settings on a per-browser basis using cookies instead of requiring a login. Given how much of the average user's web traffic is directed at a small selection of sites, having only four sites in the bar isn't as restrictive as it would first seem.

iGoogle/Google (Free, Web-Based)

Google made two appearances in this week's Hive Five on two distinct ends of the start page spectrum. For many, Google.com is their go-to search engine of choice, so it was natural to make the basic Google search portal their start page. Others love Google as a search tool but want more out of their start page, so they use iGoogle (see the screenshot above). iGoogle is Google's widget-based start page. Not only can you embed widgets for nearly every Google service—including Gtalk, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader—you can add in additional widgets from the extensiveiGoogle widget directory.

Chrome New Tab/Opera Speed Dial/Speed Dial for Firefox (Free, Browser-Dependent)

Thumbnail-based "speed dial" start pages have grown in popularity since Opera introduced Speed Dial two years ago. You can enable or install Speed Dial-style start pages in most popular browsers in a variety of ways. Opera set the stage for thumbnail-based start pages with the original Speed Dial, which allows you to specify up to 25 thumbnailed sites on your Speed Dial page for quick access. Google Chrome has its New Tab Page, which displays your most frequently accessed web pages as well as recently closed tabs (seen in the screenshot above). Finally, Speed Dial for Firefox is a Firefox extension which brings Opera-style Speed Dial to Firefox. It's not as polished in appearance as the actual offering from Opera or self-updating as the New Tab Page in Chrome, but it gets the job done. (You can actually find all kinds of Speed-Dial style extensions for Firefox, but this version is the one that garnered the most votes.)

Custom (Free, Browser-Independent)

While some people are content with the emptiness of about:blank and others are content with the structure imposed upon them by using pre-designed start pages, a smaller but vocal minority of readers opted to build their own start pages from the ground up. Why be restricted to the form and function of a start page designed by someone else when you can build your own start page to fit your needs and tinker with it to make it as simple or complex as you need it? The start pages readers create vary as much as their HTML chops allow, but for a surprising amount of readers, the best start page is the one you design yourself and load as a local HTML document or save on your web server for personal use from anywhere you do your browsing.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5476420/five-best-start-pages

How To Use Parental Controls in Windows 7

Friendly Computers know that you want protect your child from wrong content software or website. We would like to share with you this useful article.

The Parental Controls feature is a valuable tool for controlling the amount of time your children spend on the computer and the programs they’re using. Today we take a look at how to setup and use Parental Controls in Windows 7.

Parental Controls

To access Parental Controls open the Start Menu and type parental controls into the Search box and hit Enter.Alternatively you can open Control Panel and click on Parental Controls.When you open Parental Controls, click on the child’s account you want to set up.Make sure to password protect your Administrator account…otherwise anyone can turn off Parental Controls and use the computer with no restrictions.If you see a password hasn’t been set when you go into Parental Controls, click on the message and you’ll be prompted and Ensure Administrator Passwords.Under Parental Controls mark the radio button next to On, enforce current settings. Then you can go through and control their computer time, games, and programs.

Set Time Limits

Click on Time limits to control when your child has access to the computer. If you want to only allow a few hours each day, it’s easiest to left-click and drag the mouse across all of the time slots to block them. Then allow the time blocks when you want to make the computer available.

Control Games

Click on Games to control the type of access your child has to games on the computer. You can completely block all games or select games by ratings and game names. These game ratings are based on the Entertainment Software Rating Board.You can also select different game rating systems if it’s more appropriate for your location or if you like a certain system better than another.You can also block games based on the type of content it contains…and it gives you a lot of choices.

Control Programs

If you want to restrict certain programs on the machine, click on Allow and block specified programs then scroll through the list of installed programs and block them.

Additional Controls

Windows 7 doesn’t have a Web Filter included like Vista did. If you want additional controls like Web Filtering and activity reports, you’ll need to install Windows Live Family Safety which is part of the Window Live Essentials suite. With it you can block access to certain sites and also get access to an activity report that shows you what sites your children have been visiting. Everything can be controlled online which makes it nice if you want to access a report or change settings while at work.

The Parental Controls feature is easy to use and helps you administer how your children use the computer. Of course nothing is perfect or foolproof and the Parental Controls won’t replace good old fashioned “real parenting” but it makes it easier.

Download Windows Live Family Safety

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10524/how-to-use-parental-controls-in-windows-7/

Top 10 Tools for Finding Cool Stuff Nearby

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Sometimes the most interesting stuff in an unfamiliar city is hiding in plain sight. With the right location-aware and map-friendly web tools, you can find the best cheap eats, picture-worthy sights, and much more. Start with this list of in-the-know apps.

Photo by epicharmus.

10. See what pads are for rent or sale

There are plenty of webapps that let you cherry-pick apartments for rent and homes for sale from the comfort of your monitor at home. If you're right in the perfect neighborhood and want to know what's up, you've got other options. Realtor.com's iPhone app is the newest entrant to the game, but has, as you might expect, quite a database to pull from. HotPads.com has a similar location-aware app for Android phones, one that can also provide turn-by-turn directions to any listing you pluck out. Real estate data and "Zestimate" provider Zillow has an iPhone app too, but can also work from any phone with its very minimalist text interface.

9. Find photo-worthy sites with Flickr

I use Flickr mainly to find the food that people feel is worth embarrassing their table enough to take a picture of, but the photo-sharing site's nearby photo finder helps you discover sights and locations you never knew about, right around the corner from where you are. You can simply search Flickr for your location ("Chicago"), find a neat-looking photo and add /nearby to the photo's URL, or you can hit the "Map" link on any photo that has its location tagged. (Original post)

8. Snag a comfortable Wi-Fi spot

If all you want is a connection, we've got you covered. Gina's definitive guide to finding free Wi-Fi recommends such tools as WeFi and JiWire, along with other means of hopping on the net from almost anywhere. If you want somewhere you'll actually enjoy being with your laptop, LaptopFriendlyCafes.com covers 104 spots in New York City (and a scant few shops elsewhere), or type "laptop" or "wi-fi" into local review aggregator Yelp and see what comes up.

7. See what's listed nearby on Craigslist

Having a good handle on the Craigslist listings for the area you're in is like knowing someone who's always up in everybody's business—and knows where all the deals and low-key events are happening. Craigsphone for iPhone and Android phones does a great job of reformatting Craigslist for mobile viewing, calling, and mapping; in NYC and San Francisco's Bay Area, it can even show you what's close to your exact location. If you're elsewhere and want updates on items or apartments up for grabs, check out our classic Craigslist for power users guide, which explains how to make RSS feeds your always alert friend. (Original Craigsphone post)

6. Find things to do on Goby

If you have time before you head out, either on a trip or in your neighborhood, hit up your local alternative weekly's web site or newspaper's entertainment guide. If you're looking for a quicker glance, listing and calendar aggregator Goby does a notably good job of rounding up everything that's listed as a public or paid even in and around a location. Most of the stuff tends toward high-profile events and family-friendly happenings, but that might be perfect for that one rained-out vacation day in an otherwise sunny city. (Original post)

5. Catch an awesome concert

Unless you're married to, or best friends with, a concert promoter, you're going to have a few moments every year where you'll hear about an awesome show by a band you're digging at a neat venue—last week. Not so if you sign up at Bandsintown, or grab its iPhone app, both of which can keep you in the know about shows coming to your town, or whatever you consider a reasonable driving distance. Music streaming and discovery service Last.fm can also email you about shows from its vast database of artists happening nearby, and there is, of course, always signing up for notifications at your truly favorite artists' web sites. Just be sure to create a smart Gmail filter to keep the "NEW EP OUT SOON!" emails from cluttering your inbox. (Original Bandsintown post)

4. Learn what's around the corner with Near Me Now

Google's not the first entrant into the geo-location game, but the new "Near Me Now" link on its mobile home page is notable for being quick, simple, and not requiring a separate app to access (it's all web-based). It's out right now for iPhone and Android phones, but we hope it expands soon, as the pleasure of finding out scads of info about all the restaurants on the street you're facing, with the click of a link, belongs on every phone. (Original post)

3. Find great eats and drinks on semi-snobby boards

Sites and apps that offer restaurant reviews often suffer from overstuffed and not-quite-trustworthy data. A great, authentic Somali restaurant might get only one single-star review from an eater expecting something different, while a sugary-sauced Chinese joint might get a high volume of three-star ratings because, well, it's always open. Visit the forums of foodie sites like Chow/Chowhound, eGullet, and Roadfood.com, do a search for your town, and see what people serious enough to sign up for a site named "Chowhound" and the like are saying. For a tall pint of great beer, try Beer Advocate's forums.

2. See streets in augmented reality

Remember how the Terminator could pull up information on anything he saw, as he saw it? With an iPhone or Android unit, you are (scarily?) close to that reality. Apps like augmented reality browser Layar for iPhones and Androids, and the "Monocle" in the Yelp iPhone app use your phone's camera, GPS chip, and motion/balance sensors to take what you're looking at, pull down the web's knowledge about it, and bring it back to you. Yelp shows businesses that have been reviewed by somebody, anybody, while Layar is the true walking tour app. You choose which "layers" to add to your view, like Wikipedia mentions, Flickr photos, real estate listings, and Google Maps listings. It's like having someone back at your computer meticulously research everything you're seeing and feed it to you, but you don't have to wear a Secret-Service-style earpiece to do so. (Original posts: Yelp, Layar)

1. Pin down the cheap stuff

Need to fill up, but feel like you're about to pay tourist-trap prices? Down to just pocket change and an inch of credit-card space? The new classic GasBuddy is always reliable, but MSN Auto's overnight gas price finder has earned kudos, too. For cheap food and drinks, give Cheap-Ass Food a look, and give MappyHour a peek for drink specials. If you're looking for a way to spend some time without having to eat, drink, or drop much cash, DiscountYeti finds free museum days and other local discounts and maps them out for you.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5465334/top-10-tools-for-finding-cool-stuff-nearby

Which Media Center Is Right for You: Boxee, XBMC, and Windows Media Center Compared

Friendly Computers would like to share with you this article.

Want all your downloads, streaming video, and other techie media stuff on your TV? Wondering which media center works best for you? Here's a look at the biggies in chart and Venn diagram form, followed by some lengthy breakdowns of each.

New to the idea of TV-connected computers? Head down below the charts for some explainers and deeper comparisons of each system. If you're already familiar with the HTPC scene, we'll give you the good stuff first.

We focused on three widely available, and generally popular, media centers for our comparison and review. We're certainly aware there are many alternatives out there, as free software or stand-alone hardware boxes, but these are the three of the most popular media centers, they receive ongoing development, and they can easily be installed on a wide number of TV-connected computers.

The graphical explanations

Here's how we see the three major media centers, in chart list and Venn diagram forms. Note: The chart is based on out-of-the-box features that don't require the user to install any plug-ins.

What's a media center, exactly?

What does a media center do? It varies, but it generally takes all the stuff you'd normally enjoy on a computer or portable device—MP3s, video files, Netflix, Hulu, digital photos, and web/social apps—and plays it on a television, through your speakers, and back onto your wireless network, if you'd like. Media centers can be run off of pretty much any capable computer, but are generally intended for small and specialized computers, called Home Theater PCs, or HTPCs. HTPCs have the video and audio ports necessary to hook up to a modern high-definition television, and generally have enough processing power and memory to handle the heavy burden of converting, playing, and sometimes recording high-resolution files. If you've got a home network set up with shared files and network-attached storage (NAS), media centers can generally pull their content off other systems and devices, as well as receive files for storage and download them directly off the net.

Put simply, a media center allows you to sit on a couch and do the most fun things you'd do on a computer with a remote. You can fire up a movie from Netflix's streaming service or from a file you've already downloaded, catch the show you missed last night on Hulu, put on background music while you're doing something else, share your Flickr or Picasa photos with visiting relatives—whatever you'd like, really.

Not every media center can do everything, however, and some are much better at certain entertainment jobs than others. The editors at Lifehacker conferred on what each box does best, tried to pin down what each system can and can't do, and put it together in ways that we hope can help you decide.

Windows Media Center, XBMC, and Boxee

Here's a more in-depth look at the media centers—installing and setting them up, and their pros and cons.

Windows Media Center is "free" with Home Premium or Ultimate copies of Windows Vista, all versions of Windows 7 except Starter or Home Basic, and available as a stand-alone, XP-based operating system dubbed "Media Center Edition." XBMC is a free and open-source media center software that was born as a game-changing XBOX modification, but now runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and XBOX systems, as well as booting and running off a USB stick.Boxee is based on the same core internal code as XBMC, but focuses on bringing web content—video sites, blog streams, and social apps—into your living room, while XBMC remains oriented toward a download-and-play setup.

Plex, a popular and very eye-pleasing media center for Mac OS X, is certainly a contender in this category. For all intents and purposes, though, it's a variant of XBMC. Most anything we write or display in this post about XBMC applies to Plex, too, except for matters of looks and interface.

Those would be our definitions in the Lifehacker Dictionary, anyways. Let's get a bit more encyclopedic on the strengths and weaknesses of each system:

Windows Media Center

Installation and Setup: Fairly easy. It comes pre-loaded in the higher-end editions of Windows Vista and 7, and assuming your computer or HTPC has the right outputs and plugs, Windows can fairly easily adjust its display to your television. If you're running other Windows systems on your wireless network, you won't have to do much configuration to start "sharing" files back and forth from the TV-connected system to your other platforms. If you're running Mac or Linux computers, you'll have a good deal more work to do. If your media computer came with a TV tuner card already installed, Windows will recognize it and work with it to record TV shows.

Here's how Adam turned a Windows PC into a Media Center powerhouse, with a good detail on the installation and setup process.

Strengths

• Nice and easy DVR: And you don't have to pay a monthly fee.
• Calm, easy interface: Divided into obvious sections and fairly intuitive directional layouts.
• Large range of compatible remotes: Look online or in an electronics store for a "Windows Media Center remote," and you'll find something with lots of buttons that instantly hooks up to your Media Center, usually through a USB-connected receiver.
• Generally easy networking: Across Windows systems, that is, and if you're down with the shared folders setup.

Weaknesses

• File handling: Generally, Media Center can handle the same files that Windows Media Player can handle, and, with the right codec installations, that can be quite extensive. But out of the box, don't expect support for the diverse range of video and audio you'll find around the web.
• Windows-only: But you knew that.
• Complex remotes: Media Center works with a lot of remotes, but they often look like parodies of button-stuffed clickers. If a simple, Apple-like navigator exists for Media Center, do tell us in the comments.
• Locked-down DVR files: Work-arounds and decoders exist, of course, but if you want to play your recorded TV shows on anything other than your personal set of authorized Windows machines, Zunes, and XBOX devices, good luck.

Note: Windows Media Center doesn't support Hulu by default, but with the right plug-in it can do the trick.

XBMC

Installation and Setup: It depends, of course, on the platform and hardware you're installing on. Getting it running and connected on a modern Windows or Mac system is fairly painless, at least from a software standpoint. Running it as a "live" system from a USB stick isn't too hard, either, and you can install it from there onto an HTPC hard drive. Plugging it into a Madriva Linux box and hooking it up to your very specialized 1080p plasma setup with optical audio out will likely require hair plugs and years of therapy.

Read up on Adam's guide to building a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheapfor a look at the live-USB-to-installation path on a $200 HTPC system.

Strengths

• Open source, open nature: Need XBMC to do something it doesn't do already? Chances are, there's a clever hacker working on it. XBMC doesn't have the same kind of "platform" that its offspring Boxee does, but coders can get into it and make it better, and make it do more.
• Meta-data and file recognition: From personal trials and commenter anecdotes, XBMC is really good at knowing when you've put new files somewhere in your system, figuring out what types of files they are (movie, TV, music, or picture), and reaching out to the internet to pull down relevant pictures, data, reviews, and even trailer links for the videos and music you plug into it.
• Light and agile: Relatively speaking, XBMC may have some really nice graphics and menus, but because it comes from a project to put a full media center on a game system, XBMC is focused on playing back media files as smoothly as possible.
• Slick, customizable looks: Even putting Plex aside, XBMC wins, hands-down, for looking like you're living in the future when displayed on a really big, nice TV. Don't like the way it looks by default? Put a new skin on it, and it's a whole different beast.
• Format support: Personally, I've never found a file on the web, or converted from a friend's computer, that XBMC couldn't play, unless something was wrong with it.

Weaknesses:

• Lack of Netflix, Hulu: There have been work-arounds, hacks, and other tweaks to make XBMC work with the two big names in streaming video. If you were depending on either one, though, XBMC would not be a safe bet.
• Over-stuffed, sometimes complicated menus: XBMC's menus and layout are the geekiest around—how you react to that depends on your temperament. You can do all kinds of things from any screen in XBMC, and its interface often has a smile-inducing futuristic feel to it. But for someone new to media centers and looking to just sit down and play something, it can be quite imposing.

Boxee

Installation and Setup: On Windows and Mac systems, the latest Boxee beta is relatively simple to install, as it uses the built-in video and audio systems to push out content. On Linux, it's a good deal more complex, but, then again, what on Linux isn't? Apple TVs require a bit of hacking. In general, Boxee is compatible with the same kind of hardware as XBMC—OpenGL or DirectX-compatible video cards are highly recommended.

Here's how Kevin set up a cheap but powerful Boxee media center using a brawny $350 HTPC and free copies of Linux and Boxee.

Strengths

• Built-in Hulu and Netflix: Boxee and Hulu have had their differences, but they seem to have reached a draw in the stand-off—most Hulu shows and movies work, most of the time. Netflix works fine on Windows and Mac, assuming you don't mind installing Microsoft's Silverlight system.
• Growing directory of web content apps: Love FailBlog? Dig Vimeo's really hi-res stuff? Fan of TwiT's videocasts? Watch them all from Boxee's app, and grab more in the app "store," which has a very healthy selection of customized streaming content.
• Play anything (technically): Boxee uses a reworked Firefox browser to view Hulu, but it's available for nearly any kind of web video page you find on the web. The Boxee Browser is a kind of last resort for any web content that doesn't have its own app.

Weaknesses

• Love-it-or-leave-it interface: Even with its content-forward redesign, many media center aficionados have said they can't get used to Boxee's hidden left-hand sidebars and forward/back functionality. Some just don't like the default looks. It's not a make-or-break issue, considering it's basically the same core tools as XBMC, but if you're going to spend serious time with a media center, you want to like how it looks.
• Local file handling: Boxee doesn't seem as smart about recognizing and updating local file stores. In the words of one Lifehacker editor, "Local files are almost an afterthought." That's to be expected, somewhat, on a system that's so web-facing and stream-savvy, but Boxee could do a lot more to make downloaded music, movies, and pictures easier to gather, organize, and access.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5462275/which-media-center-is-right-for-you-boxee-xbmc-and-windows-media-center-compared

Fact and Fiction: The Truth About Browser Cookies

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Browser cookies are one of those technical bits of web browsing that almost everyone has some awareness of. They're also probably one of the most misunderstood aspects of browsing. Today we're here to clear up the confusion.

When it comes to browser cookies, most users have a lot of misconceptions about what they do. Here's a closer look at exactly what a browser cookie is, what it isn't, and what it's really used for.

What Are Cookies Anyway?

Cookies are nothing more than tiny bits of text stored on your PC by your web browser, containing information set by web sites such as your session token, user preferences, or anything else that the web site needs to keep track of you from one request to the next. Once the web site has asked your browser to set the cookie, the next time your browser opens a new request to the server—clicking a link to a page, adding an item to your cart, or even loading an image—your browser will send that cookie back to the web site that set the cookie.

The reason cookies exist are because the underlying HTTP protocol is stateless—each request from your browser is completely separate from the next one, so the server needs a way to keep track of what request belongs to what visitor. By storing a small bit of information in a cookie, the web site can determine that your page view belongs to your user account.

There are two "categories" of cookies: either first-party or third-party cookies. (Although there's actually no technical difference between the two.) First-party cookies are those cookies that belong to sites you actually visited in your browser, while third-party cookies, also known as tracking cookies, are generated from a Javascript include on the page—generally from third-party advertising web sites.

Myth: Cookies Spy On You and Track Everything You Are Doing

As we've already learned, the contents of cookies are set by the web site that you visited, so unless you've given your information to a web site, there's no way that cookies are going to contain personal information unless you've given that information to the site already.

Most cookies are as simple as a session token, but sometimes they contain your login credentials, usually encrypted or hashed in some format—but since cookies are only sent back to the same site that originated them, even if cookies contained personal information, it is not going to be shared with every site you visit.

Myth: Cookies Are Viruses or Spyware and Create Spam and Popups

Cookies are nothing more than text files and could not be executed even if you track down the hidden folder they are usually located in, but a surprising amount of people believe that cookies contain viruses or spyware. The reason for this, other than misconceptions fueled by clueless TV writers, is probably because most anti-spyware applications catch tracking cookies when you do a scan. Why? Cookies can be used by advertising web sites to track the sites you visit (assuming the sites are using the same advertising network—see more below), so most anti-spyware applications help you remove them.

The other myth is that cookies are responsible for spam and create pop-up advertisements. While it's true that an advertiser can use cookies to track which pop-up ads you've seen, the cookies have nothing to do with the advertisement in the first place.

Fact: Spyware and Viruses Can Read Your Cookies, but So What?

Another common misconception is that cookies are bad because if you have a virus or spyware infection, they can read your cookies to find out more information about you. This concept is not only overly paranoid, but completely illogical to boot—if your PC is already infected with a virus, you are pretty much totally screwed, since it has completely control over your computer, and your information at that point.

Fact: Cookies Are Required for Logging Into Most Sites

The vast majority of web sites require cookies to be enabled in order to create an account and keep yourself logged in, so if you disable cookies in your browser, a large portion of the web is going to be broken. There are some exceptions, of course—you'll probably notice that many shopping web sites embed the session token into the URL, but it's not something that most sites are going to implement. These cookies are considered first-party cookies, because they are set by the web site you purposely visited.

Fact: Cookies are Used by Advertisers to Track Sites You Visit

Because cookies are always sent back to the site that originated them, an advertiser's cookie will be sent back to them from every web site you visit that is also using that same advertiser. This allows the advertiser to track the sites you visit, and send targeted advertising based on the types of sites that you visit.

This does not mean that advertisers can read the cookies from the web site you are visiting—they can only read their own cookies, but because the advertising Javascript is embedded in the page, they will know the URL you are visiting. These cookies are considered third-party cookies, because they are not set by the actual page you are visiting, and they can generally be blocked without causing any serious problems.

If this type of tracking keeps you up at night, consider that an advertiser can already track the sites you visit based a combination of your IP address, browser version, location, and any number of other factors—so getting rid of the tracking cookies only eliminates a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to tracking your behavior online. There are also only a few advertisers big enough to really track you across the majority of web sites—and one has to assume Google already knows everything else you're doing online.

Fact: Deleting or Blocking Cookies Can Cause More Annoying Ads

If you've ever visited a web site that sometimes, but not always, prevents you from reading the article until you click through an interstitial advertisement that takes over the entire page—you might wonder what logic dictates who sees the ads and when.

Here's how it works: interstitial ads pay web sites very lucrative rates to allow them to take over the entire page, but since most web site owners know that they are annoying, they are usually rate-limited so they aren't seen too often by the same person. Once you've seen the ad a single time, the advertiser sets a cookie on your PC to make certain that you don't see the same annoying ad again for a while. If you are deleting your cookies on a regular basis, you're probably also seeing a lot more of these interstitial ads than everybody else. That is, of course, if you don't have an adblocker installed.

Fact: Disabling Cookies Doesn't Matter If You Have Flash Enabled

As we've already pointed out in our guide to browsing without leaving a trace, even if you are blocking cookies in your browser, advertisers are using Flash cookies to keep track of what you're browsing online. In fact,more than half of the most popular web sites are using Flash tracking cookies—and even using your browser in private mode won't (currently) stop them from tracking you this way.

Still Want to Block Cookies? Try Blocking Third Party Cookies Only

If you are still worried about cookies for privacy reasons, you can set up your browser to only accept first-party cookies, so you'll still be able to login to all the web sites that you visit. For Firefox, just head into the Options panel, switch to the Privacy tab, and uncheck the Accept third-party cookies box. If that causes you any problems, you can keep the option checked, but change the "Keep until" setting to remove the cookies once you close Firefox. Other browsers have similar settings; just head into the options to find them.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5461114/fact-and-fiction-the-truth-about-browser-cookies